The Influence Of Food In American Culture

How can American culture embrace ethnic foods while neglecting, oppressing, gentrifying, and discriminating against the members, traditions, and practices of a culture?

Nowadays, food has become more and more diverse. From mixing spices to mixing cultures in “fusion cuisine”, food in America has become a melting pot in itself. Most of American food has major influences from other cultures. Spaghetti and pizza is Italian, hot dogs and hamburgers are German, and tacos and burritos are from Mexican. Everyday meals are based off of cultures that have made their way not only to this country, but to our dinner tables. From the start American cuisine has grown from the influences of other culture. In a way, food has been a platform in which
Originally the Native Americans would usually consume a seafood based diet which incorporated different ingredients. A variety of seafood were eaten from whales to crustaceans. When the seafood was caught, the meat would be grilled with leaves and root vegetables directly over fires. In time they created adobe ovens called hornos to “bake” items such as corn based breads. For the parts of America that didn’t have those resources, the men in tribes would catch mammals and the women would cook food in steamed pits which were made with heated rocks. In the early 1600-1700s, European colonies in New England introduced a variety of ingredient and cooking style to the “new found” land. Colonist farmed animals for meat which they used to make their native British cuisine. British cuisine was based on bread, vegetables, and meat. Food varied by region but seafood, turkey, and buffalo were commonly hunted. Finding their groundings was hard at first, but they began to trade with the Natives and the people in the West Indies in order to explore new flavors. Early Native Americans’ and European cooking methods were combined to form the origins of American Cuisine. Though during this time the Native Americans and colonist were trading and exploring their different cultures, the colonist became very accepting of the Natives’ foods and cooking methods but weren’t accepting of the Natives’ culture or land. The
First off was “Eurasian” cuisine which was a blend of cooking methods and dishes from Europe and Asia that. Fusion was invented by Chef Wolfgang Puck. He developed dishes such as poached tofu which generally mixes European and Asian method of poaching. Today fusion food has grown into a big “fad” with a slightly negative connotation. In today’s fusion, chiefs are creating a whole food that has little or no ties to the country of origin. Prices have reached an all-time high for the new trend that took America by storm. Even though having food such as fish tacos and ramen noodle fries may seem innovative and flavorful, naming the food in ways that suggest that it is from a certain culture in order to make money is a form of